Sent: Monday, September 28, 2015 1:16 AM
To: Lauri Merrill <lauri.merrill@usu.edu>
Subject:
Hey mom I’m finally on. I tried reading all your emails but I realized I will not have enough time so I took pictures of them and I will read them during any extra time and next week I will respond to anything. So holy cow, I don’t even know where to start. I have so much to say in so little time. It’s currently 2:45 here so I’m not sure what time it is there I think 4:45 the next day or something. Next Monday I’m not sure when I’ll be on again. The mission pres said no email chatting. You’re supposed to send one then read the response the next p-day. All the rules are so different. The computers here are in little cafe shacks and are soooo sketchy. They have viruses and all that. So I’ll try to send pictures without them becoming corrupt or losing any of them I’m really worried about them not working. Okay, so to start, the plane trips were long and super boring, when we got to the Hong Kong airport I had no clue what was going on, so many Chinese people haha. Then we got on the plane to Manila. When we arrived it was soooo hot. We took a bus to the MTC. The MTC was small and only had about 100 people. Being there was just basically a time waster so you can do all this citizen stuff, not much to say about the MTC. The temple was so cool. The session was really small (I’m just noticing all the grammar mistakes, the keyboard is broken and really sticky, ignore all mistakes, I won’t have time to fix them) then we packed up again and went to the airport to go to Legazpi. When we were flying and I saw the Mayon volcano for the first time that’s when I knew that it just got real haha. We landed on the tarmac and again it was sooo hot. We went to a church and met our new comps, my comps name is Elder Dollete. He’s from some place in the Philippines and yes of course he’s really short. He doesn’t speak English very good so it is sooo difficult to communicate with him. He’s teaching me Tagalog and I’m teaching him English. I’m also now learning Bicol, another language is my zone. My zones name is Tabaco and my area is Bacacay. It’s really small and is in the jungle somewhere. Really close to the Mayon volcano. I can see it everywhere I go. There is always smoke from it. My apartment is really small and very dirty, I’m surprised I haven’t died from all diseases known to man, but that’s just how they live here. Everything is dirty, trash everywhere, dirty food, dirty water, scary animals all over, in Manila we saw a dog with is head chopped off being cooked by a blow torch, so gross. I’ve seen 3 white people since I’ve been here. Some people speak a little English so I can barely manage, I’m constantly starving 24/7. All we had in our apartment when I got there was bread and rice. My comp barely eats anything!! So up until today I was literally starving. I made him come with me to the market and we bought real food or at least the most real they’ve got (hot dogs, yogurt, eggs, and stuff like that.) I’m constantly being yelled at because I’m a foreigner, they yell stuff at me then laugh and of course I can’t understand them so I feel way dumb. My comp just says don’t listen to them, ha that won’t be hard! The very day we got here we starting teaching and tracking. It’s so hard teaching cause they talk so fast and I can’t keep up but I put my fair share in with the lessons. EVERYONE is catholic so they’ve already been baptized. Nobody knows about Mormons so they aren’t really interested. We have some progressing inv but it’s slow. One man believes the Sabbath is Saturday?? Ha. The rumors are true. We are celebrating Christmas already, music, trees and all. Holy cow there’s so much to say and I only have 12 minutes left. It rains every day and the thunder is deafening. I guess there’s a typhoon coming? Hindi ko alam. So I’ll try to cut it short and I’ll write down stuff to put in my next email. The toilets (CR) don’t flush, you poop and use a bucket of water and poor till it goes down, they don’t have TP so you use that same bucket and ladle to poop down your crack and then you can use your imagination for the rest. ha The shower is a little thing in the wall that sprinkles out freezing water, even though its hot here the cold shower is too cold. There’s no tub or shower. It’s all in like a 7x4 room, toilet is 2 feet away from where you stand to shower. The water to drink needs to pass through 3 filters before you can safely drink it if you forget to turn it on your done for at least your body is. I know there is sooo much more to talk about but I’m running out of time and this is only my first email and I still haven’t sent pictures, if I even safely can? So I’m going to end now and try to get the pictures to work. Next email next Monday will have more stuff but this is all for today. I love you so so so much and of course I love the fam so so much. It’s really hard here but I know I got a rally time back at home cheering for me! Tell Gma sorry for not emailing her back cause of time. Tell Hink I love him and I’ll keep you all in my prayers everyday Love you xoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
**Elder Merrill**
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